Background
Bonnin was born to a Native American mother and a white father at the Yankton Sioux Agency in South Dakota, United States on February 22, 1876.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
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("Whether your interest in Sioux folklore is great or smal...)
"Whether your interest in Sioux folklore is great or small, you will find this a fascinating book to devour. Pick up a copy today and be thrilled." The Reading Room This accessible and affordable volume combines two essential collections by Sioux author Zitkala-Sa. American Indian Stories assembles short stories, autobiographical reflections, and political essays that offer poignant reflections on the author's sense of being stranded between the white and Native American worlds. Old Indian Legends features tales from the oral tradition legends passed down through the generations that form a genre known as the "retold tale." Born on South Dakota's Yankton Reservation in 1876, Zitkala-Sa felt "as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer." At the age of eight, she traded her freedom for the iron discipline of a Quaker boarding school. Disillusioned by American society as well as her own tribe, Zitkala-Sa attended college, became a teacher, and wrote about her experiences in a variety of books and magazines. A prominent advocate for Native American rights throughout her life, she was a key figure in the legislation that granted Native Americans citizenship in 1924.
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(CD-ROM Edition. Not a DVD, not an audio CD, no illustrati...)
CD-ROM Edition. Not a DVD, not an audio CD, no illustrations. Produced in a Microsoft Compatible Format for reading, printing or research. About this Book: A unique combination of autobiography and fiction which represents an attempt to merge cultural critique with aesthetic form, especially surrounding such fundamental matters as religion. About the Author: Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (February 22, 1876 - January 26, 1938), better known by her pen name, Zitkala-Sa (Lakota: pronounced zitkála-?a, which translates to Red Bird),1 was a Native American writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She published in national magazines. With William F. Hanson, Bonnin co-composed the first American Indian Grand opera, The Sun Dance (composed in romantic style based on Ute and Sioux themes), which premiered in 1913. She founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926, which she served as president until her death.
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(Legends of the Native Americans. About the Author Gertr...)
Legends of the Native Americans. About the Author Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876 - 1938) Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (February 22, 1876 - January 26, 1938), better known by her pen name, Zitkala-Sa, was a Native American writer, editor, musician, teacher and political activist. She was born and raised on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota by her mother, Ellen Simmons, whose Yankton-Nakota name was Tate Iyohiwin (Every Wind or Reaches for the Wind). Zitkala-Sa lived a traditional lifestyle until the age of eight when she left her reservation to attend Whites Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker mission school in Wabash, Indiana. She went on to study for a time at Earlham College in Indiana and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. A considerable talent, Bonnin co-composed the first American Indian grand opera, The Sun Dance (composed in romantic style based on Ute and Sioux themes), in 1913. After working as a teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, she moved to Boston and began publishing short stories and autobiographical vignettes. Her autobiographical writings were serialized in Atlantic Monthly from January to March of 1900 and, later, published in a collection called American Indian Stories in 1921. Her first book, Old Indian Legends, is a collection of folktales that she gathered during her visits home to the Yankton Reservation. Much of early scholarship on her life comes from American Indian Stories and, more recently, from Doreen Rappaport's biography titled The Flight of Red Bird. For other reliable scholarship, see the work of P. Jane Hafen. Her life has recently received more attention after the so-called "canon wars." This new influx of scholarship from ethnic groups who have been largely excluded from the traditional American literar
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Bonnin was born to a Native American mother and a white father at the Yankton Sioux Agency in South Dakota, United States on February 22, 1876.
She spent her early childhood on the reservation, immersed in traditional Sioux ways. But when she was about eight, she left to attend a Quaker missionary school for Indians located in Wabash, Indiana. After a difficult and unhappy adjustment period, young Gertrude finally settled in and completed a three-year term, then returned home for four years before going back for another three-year course of study. Following her graduation in 1895, she went on to Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, earning recognition as the winner of a state-wide oratory contest.
In 1897, Gertrude Simmons, as she was then known, secured a teaching position at Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian School. While the time she spent there was not pleasant, she did manage to make some contacts in the eastern literary establishment that enabled her to begin publishing some of her work (under her Sioux name, Zitkala-Sa, or Red Bird) in such well-known magazines as Harper's and Atlantic Monthly.
In 1899, she resigned from the Carlisle faculty and enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston to study violin. Free to pursue her writing and her music in a cultural milieu she enjoyed, she was happier than she had been in many years.
In 1901, she published her first full-length book, Old Indian Legends, a collection of Native American stories. But she still felt somewhat torn between two worlds, and she very much wanted to do something for those she had left behind on the reservation. Returning to South Dakota around 1902, she married and the couple soon moved to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah, where Gertrude Simmons Bonnin worked as a clerk and a teacher. During this same period, she also became involved with the Society of American Indians, a Native American reform organization founded in 1911 at Ohio State University. The first group of its kind to be established and managed solely by Native Americans, it operated on the principle that assimilation was ultimately the best course for the country's Native American population. To that end, the Society focused its efforts not only on government reforms but on activities such as increasing Native American employment in the Indian Service (the federal agency charged with managing Indian affairs), codifying laws pertaining to Native Americans, achieving Native American citizenship, opening the courts to all just claims regarding land settlements between Native Americans and the government, and preserving Native American history.
In 1916, Bonnin was elected secretary of the Society of American Indians, and not long after, she and her husband moved to Washington, D. C. From her new base in the nation's capital, which she would call home for the rest of her life, she continued to serve as secretary of the Society (until 1919) and editor of its major publication, American Indian Magazine. She also joined forces with a number of other organizations spearheading Native American rights and reform, including the American Indian Defense Association and the Indian Rights Association. In addition, she began lecturing extensively from coast to coast, speaking to women's clubs and other groups on Indian affairs and lobbying for Indian citizenship. Her work on behalf of the latter met with success in 1924 with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Bill. Both Bonnin and her husband devoted a great deal of their time to meeting with officials of the federal government on behalf of individual Native Americans and tribes. They also testified before various congressional committees on a wide variety of issues. Many of their findings were the result of their own investigations and travels throughout the country visiting reservations and noting the need for improvements in areas such as health care, education, conservation of natural resources, and preserving Native American cultural traditions.
In 1926, following the disbanding of the Society of American Indians, the Bonnins formed the National Council of American Indians (NCAI). Like the Society, the NCAI was made up exclusively of Native Americans; Gertrude Bonnin served as its president. Its focus was also on reform, and to that end, Bonnin directed her energies toward lobbying for Native American legislation in Congress and calling attention to the deficiencies of the Indian Service.
In 1928, U. S. Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work commissioned a group of scholars to study living conditions among Native Americans, focusing in particular on economic activity, education, health, and the federal government's administrative policies and practices. Under the direction of Dr. Lewis Meriam, the Institute for Government Research conducted an exhaustive survey and published the results in a landmark report entitled The Problem of Indian Administration, more commonly known as the Meriam Report. Its description of the "deplorable" state of life on the reservations - the high death rate among all age groups, the failure of the educational system, the widespread poverty and malnutrition - focused national attention on the plight of Native Americans and increased pressure on the government to take immediate action.
In mid-December of 1928, Bonnin voiced her thoughts on the findings of the Meriam Report at a meeting of the Indian Rights Association in Atlantic City, New Jersey. According to the text of the speech, as furnished by the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University, which houses the Gertrude Simmons Bonnin Collection, Bonnin declared: "As an Indian, speaking earnestly for the very life of my race, I must say that this report by the Institute for Government Research, The Problem of Indian Administration, is all too true, although I do not always concur in their conclusions, which tend to minimize the responsibility of the Bureau [of Indian Affairs]. "
Bonnin described the conditions on most reservations as below poverty level, with food being scarce and very few educational and employment opportunities. In the speech, Bonnin detailed provisions available in reservation schools: "The subcommittee of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is holding hearings right now, and sworn testimony reveals horrible conditions-rotten meat, full of maggots, and spoiled flour which mice and cats had defiled, are fed to children in government schools. Sworn statements amply show that the report of the Institute for Government Research could all be transformed into the superlative degree and not begin to tell the whole story of Indian exploitation. " Bonnin also commented on the quality of education available to young Native Americans in her address: "The Indian race is starving-not only physically, but mentally and morally. It is a dire tragedy. The government Indian schools are not on a par with the American schools of today. The so-called 'Indian Graduates from Government Schools' cannot show any credentials that would be accepted by any business house. They are unable to pass the Civil Service examinations. The proviso in Indian treaties that educated Indians, wherever qualified, be given preference in Indian Service employment is rendered meaningless. Indians are kept ignorant and 'incompetent' to cope with the world's trained workers, because they are not sufficiently educated in the government schools. " While it did not bring about major improvements, the Meriam Report did exert some influence on government policies regarding Native Americans during the administrations of Herbert Hoover (1928 - 33) and his successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 - 45). Hoover, for example, appointed two leading members of the Indian Rights Association as commissioner and assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As part of his Depression-era reforms, Roosevelt pushed for the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and its promised "Indian New Deal, " which granted Indians more self-government and the right to keep observing their own cultural ceremonies and other events.
As for Bonnin, she remained active in the reform movement throughout the 1930's. She continued lobbying Congress, particularly on behalf of the Sioux and the Utes, and frequently lectured across the United States, often appearing in native dress to dramatize her message. While she devoted less time to her writing, she renewed her interest in music and even composed an Indian opera entitled Sun Dance. After her death in 1938 at the age of only sixty-one, Bonnin was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
("Whether your interest in Sioux folklore is great or smal...)
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
(Legends of the Native Americans. About the Author Gertr...)
(CD-ROM Edition. Not a DVD, not an audio CD, no illustrati...)
She was a member of the Society of American Indians.
In 1902 Gertrude married a fellow Yankton Sioux, Raymond Talesfase Bonnin, who worked for the Indian Service. Zitkala-Sa gave birth to the couple's only son, Raymond Ohiya Bonnin.